March 23, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Photograph by Rich Ryan
A troupe of actors from Minneapolis’s Mixed Blood Theatre traveled to Puerto Rico last month to put on nine shows for 1,800 employees at the factories operated by Medtronic, a medical-products manufacturer. The play, titled Lazarus after a nickname given to the corporation’s logo, tracked the struggles and successes of a Medtronic employee who started at the bottom and rose through the company’s ranks.
Lazarus is just one of many shows produced through the theater’s “Entertraining” program, which uses comedy, dance, and music to delve into difficult issues that workers encounter on the job, such as conflicts related to gender, race, and sexual orientation. Performances are customized for each audience, which can be as small as 25 or as large as 500.
Previous clients have included Northwest Airlines, Pillsbury, and Target, as well as several universities and nonprofit groups in the Twin Cities area.
Playwrights sit down with a small group of managers once a performance is booked to create an original script that incorporates industry buzzwords and explores specific issues of interest to the organization.
After each performance, participants join in discussion groups, led by professional facilitators hired either by the client or through Mixed Blood.
“The strength of what we offer is that it’s tailor-made,” says Jack Reuler, the artistic director.
He established the Mixed Blood Theatre Company in a historic Minneapolis firehouse in 1976, dedicating the group to Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight to eliminate racism and prejudice. Entertraining has staged 500 performances since the program started in 1989, including the one shown here for the Great American History Theatre, in St. Paul.
Operating costs for Entertraining average $125,000 each year, which accounts for 10 percent of Mixed Blood Theatre’s $1.2-million annual budget.
To commission a performance, organizations pay between $5,000 and $50,000, which covers the cost of production and travel; the rest of the group’s budget is raised through corporate, foundation, and government grants.
